Under the Pendulum Sun

by Jeannette Ng

The span of a book, that was the distance I was offering him in this truce. I would not cross that space.

They were but stinging from the dust. Nothing else.

“And Tamar took the cakes which she had made, and brought them into the chamber to Amnon her brother. And when she had brought them unto him to eat, he took hold of her, and said unto her, Come lie with me, my–”

2 sam 13:10

“You always liked Hagar’s prayer.”

she called to the God Who Sees and she named him as such.

“And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?”

We discussed the passage in the understanding of divine providence and various ways God’s Sight anchored the wo...

The new gravity of the situation did not, however, entirely prevent more frivolous theology.

“You can’t just point out Light rhymes with Sight and then call it your proof.”

and, yet, fairy logic

“And Genesis does begin with the creation of Light itself. The act of seeing is impossible without it.” “No, by that logic God is blind in the dark.” “But the dark before the world is no ordinary dark. And I am quoting you on God’s blindness in the future.” “You can’t cite me to refute me. We’ve decidedly already established that.”

But the sun was not our own. It hung at the end of a thread, a burnished brazen disk. It seemed so close, it took up half the sky. The pendulum sun was completely still above us.

With the brilliance of the sun, the moon was only visible in the shadow of clouds. It seemed awkward and small with its unseeing eyes and mouth full of crooked teeth. It swam in desperate circles, searching for darkness.

counted numerous seconds outside of time. It was strange to imagine these seconds unrecorded and apart.

I remembered the stories of the Egyptian days that belonged to no year, the time when the false gods broke their own laws ...

Soon, they would reset the clock of...

They would drag the pendulum across the sky to the furthest edge of the Faelands a...

The pendulum sun remained. Arcadia was holding its b...

brushing against my ear in mimicry of a secret.

It tasted of the moors.

He was waiting, a dark, beautiful silhouette against the pendulum sun. He reached his hand to mine and our fingers tangled. And then suddenly, it was pitch black. The clock had started.

It is like poison. You drink it slowly, over time, and hopefully you will become used to it. Sip it. Every day, until your body is so used to dying a little at a time that it no longer feels the pain as pain, no longer recognises it because it is so good at hiding, at pretending. We are all dying slowly, a little more pain would make little difference. So every day, a tiny sip of death, embraced and savoured like life, like reality, like truth, like everything that is good and worthy and wonderful. It is like drinking shards of broken glass – fragments of a dream – so beautiful, what was once real, now broken, just cutting one up inside.

“I have forgotten and this is no longer pain, because I feel it so much, because it is like second nature to me, as natural as breathing, and I no longer remember what it is like when it was whole, when I was not feeling this, when it doesn't run through me.”

you will not bleed, not really, because you will be so used to bleeding inside, you will not feel it.

And then, then, you will be stronger.

water. I wanted to breathe slower, to drift like dust.

Its unchanging roundness gave the illusion of time staying still, of a world holding its breath.

It was easy to believe that soon my days would be nothing but this watery twilight.

The door to empty air was open.

We were on the roof. I did not remember stairs.

It swam close.

The woman in black clambered across the shingles. Her veil thrashed like a caged beast and she streamed long ribbons from her arms like a Morris dancer.

Though her lip was split, I was certain I recognised her from one of the portraits in the long gallery.

I was in a very small, narrow room. It had within it nothing more than an unmade bed and a travel trunk with leather handles. It was very new and bore a pair of brass initials.

The woman in black stood beside a small, lit fireplace. I recognised it as one that was used for baking the Eucharist wafers. The rosy light illuminated the small chapel, dancing red upon the pews and the high altar. I recognised the scattered candlesticks and dishes. We were in the other chapel. The one in the white tower in the garden.

how is it used to bake the eucharist wafers if it's in the chapel tower?

gilded altarpiece with faceless halos loomed over us,

“It’s not real. He can’t see you, so it’s not real.”

“Does it matter?” she whispered, voice hoarse with disuse. “He can’t see any of us.” “Of course it does.” “It’s not real, don’t you understand? None of this is real.”

stand here, I think it a place. A real place, but it is nothing more than a painted set of a puppet box. Patchwork curtains and all. Except that we are the puppets.”

“And what the word did make it I do believe and take it.”

“He was the word that spoke it. I believe. He took the bread and broke it. I believe that too.”

I will not be stolen away again. The gloved hand will strike; it holds the power. That within will speak truth and I fear, I should not fear.”

“The fire looks after me. The fire loves me. But even that’s not real. Nothing really is around here.”

does the salamander love you?

They built it all in a day and a night. You don’t know where you are. You don’t see because you’re blind. I don’t see because I don’t have eyes.”

“But then you weren’t wrong.” She pressed one of the letters against her lips in a reverent kiss. “The worst lie.” Another kiss. “The best lie.” Another. “The only lie… it is always the truth.”

can’t kill me quickly, so I just have to do it slow. Slow, slow. So slow,”

Bringer of dreams.

“He went fast. Leapt through the door from dreams.”

“Lost but found. Stolen but safe.”

“The original,” she whispered. “I am the original.”

are you the human ariel?

She also said that she was the original, a word that meant too many things and too few.